On The Line
by Oreo-ism
Summary: "For a while, I thought: Where would I be if I pressed you too hard in Dauntless initiation? If I broke you. Would we be where we are and what we are now? Maybe, maybe not." Set in mid-Insurgent. Ever since the first night in Candor headquarters, Tris has grown a little more different. As if she's on the line, giving herself up for death, and Tobias is afraid.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: first time writing a Divergent fic, so i'm sorry if i get any of the character's personalities wrong. so how this story came about was that i was halfway through Insurgent (i'm up till the "i just don't want to lose you" part, and though my exams start in 5 days, this plot bunny of mine popped up about What Tobias Would Do/How Tobias Would React about Tris' nearly attempted suicide. aaand, yeah (: I couldn't get past this so i just wrote this up today! i hope you like it, and reviews would certainly be lovely!**

**Disclaimer: i try impossibly hard to mimic Veronica Roth's style of writing, and i doubt it's working! other than that, i don't own anything related to the Divergent trilogy and my lovely otp! **

* * *

The scream, a cry so angered and anguished, is distinctly familiar in my mind. I recognize it easily, because it is exactly what that's brewing in my chest right now. A while later and I realize that the scream is mine, though I never did notice it escaping my lips. The wooden interrogation chair of Candor's amphitheater hurtles towards the ground - a beautiful sight - but my throat burns during the process. My battle cry continues until the chair shatters like brittle skeleton, splintered at the edges but intact in the middle.

Then I wonder: What will happen to human cellulite, human bones, human matter? What will happen to me? Will my brain explode upon impact, or will my bones splinter just like the chair? Will my eyes and nose and ears bleed matter, just like the blood that will gurgle at the back of my throat?

I remember Al. How he looked when he was hauled from the chasm, dead on the cool, solid rock of Dauntless ground. Body bloodless and blue, limbs mangled as if he formed a human pretzel. Joints dislocated in awkward directions not humanly possible. Dead, all completely dead. All because of me.

The only difference between then and now is that he had fallen hundreds of feet into the chasm, bashed against rocks by the crushing current of the water. It's no wonder he ended up looking like that. I am only twenty - or maybe a hundred and eighty, I don't bother counting - feet from the floor below me. There is no bashing water or giant rocks to destroy me like it destroyed Al. The rush of air won't crush the bones in my chest, since it needs a terribly high velocity. So I don't know.

I don't know what will happen to me. I don't know how I will end up. There are so many questions in my head, factual Erudite questions about the natural law and order of calculative physics. I can't answer any of them because I'm too stupid to learn, but maybe that's how things are meant to be. The wonders of not knowing, the intense tug of diving head-first into areas of the unknown. That is what's so wonderful about this, that I will not know. That is what pushes me to try and see what happens.

I don't think about Christina, or about Tobias. I try not to think about my mother and father. I rely on not thinking about the fear, the part of me that squirms at the thought of leaving them. Leaving Dauntless, leaving Christina, and leaving Caleb... Leaving Tobias. I try not to think about the tears they will shed, the tears _he_will shed, if they even do, and focus on the guilt that consumes me. The guilt, the favorable Dauntless rush of adrenaline. I focus on Al, and my parents, and Will. I focus on avenging their deaths, which I am the culprit.

Maybe courage, and dauntlessness, and the bravery that we have all been arguing about, maybe it comes in death. Maybe it is the ability to have the will to take your life, the ability to own up to your deepest regrets and your gravest mistakes, and be unafraid to pay for those sins, whether or not the people you love allow it to.

Maybe that is what being Dauntless means, and Will was dauntless. Al was dauntless. If selflessness was, too, an act of bravery, of dauntlessness, then so were my parents. So I am too. So I am Dauntless. And within a step of the ledge, "am" will become a "was", and I will be dead. There is always power in self-sacrifice.

The gusts of wind slam into my body, and it feels like a cold hard slap to my face. It stings, but that doesn't matter because the rush is better. It's exhilarating to stand on the edge, barely inches between life and death. It grabs onto my loose clothes, like a sail catching wind, and I teeter.

It should scare me, and yet, it doesn't. My muscles should be tight, completely rigid and prepared for the pain at the end of the fall, but I remain relaxed. I remain calm. I am not tense. I am only ready. I am only accepting. I am tired of being Tris, the divergent, the killer, the traitor. I am tired of my existence itself, and I have evolved. Every part of me has evolved, over time, over guilt, over affirmation.

One step... One step to end this. I have tried many times, in this same situation, but I remember my parents. First, I try to hold on to the love of their sacrifice for me, long enough to put me back on safe ground. As I have said, I have changed. Now, the love of their sacrifice leaves me with longing to be reconciled with them.

Guilt has changed me, and it's no different from growing into new skin from the old. The bigger ones, with the bigger problems, and the bigger triggers. Also, the bigger burn out. The emotional longing trumps all. I didn't know that then, and I didn't want to know that then, but now I do, and I embrace it like love has always embraced me. In the forms of my parents, my brother, my friends, and Tobias.

Tobias... I feel him somewhere, and he calls my name. _Tris._ It shakes. A part of me withers with my will. A part of me wants to return. Return to him. _Tris, please!_Tobias begs, and I can hear the thickness in his throat, the tears too. I can hear them.

Dry tears gather in my eyes, and I turn as if I know that he's there. He is, eyes swollen, demeanour vulnerable and helpless, as if he will crumple on the ledge beside my feet. I am not worth his tears, or his love. What am I, compared to him? He is a survivor, as well as dauntless, in escaping Marcus. And I, I am not the Tris he fell in love with anymore. She was worthy of him, but I am not.

_I don't want to lose you, Tris._His voice quietens, barely a whisper now. The quiet in his tone is not like other times, the ones where he retains his anger, the ones which scare almost everybody. No, it is, instead, the kind I have felt before. The kind that your words are too brittle and your voice is too thin, and you fear that if you speak too loud, your voice will crack and break, and tears will stream freely down your cheeks. A weakness that you don't care enough to conceal.

I lift my eyes to his. A tear trickles down from his deep sockets. _I love you, Tris. Please..._ Another tear. Is a part of the Tris that he loves, that he deserves, still in me, somewhere? If it still is, I love him too. I know I do. And that is why the ends of my lips curl into a smile that the Tris before used to smile. I take a step, and as I hear his broken cry and feel his slender fingers brush futilely at my wrist, I close my eyes, and I fall.

* * *

**oh-oh! Poor Tobias! :( don't worry! this will be continued! TBC! and devoting time to writing (as a relaxer from studying, or a distraction) makes me hope that i don't retain for the year. but writing is a part of me, and so- I hope you enjoyed this! reviews would be extra lovely, like telling me your favorite sentence or paragraph, or (constructive) criticism is fine! (: **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: here's the next chapter :) and i'm just that happy to celebrate the end of my studying for damn social studies! but my exams start tomorrow! i'll try to write though in my free time alright! love you guys and the reviews are so cute too! ;) **

**disclaimer: disclaimed.**

* * *

I startle myself out of the dream as soon as my body hits the ground, frowning at the glaring light of day. My cheek feels warm against flesh, and the skin smells familiar of a mixture of assaulting flavors Smells just like him. A subtle smile makes its way to my lips, and I shift my head on his chest, yawning. Then I notice that we're sitting on the very same ledge, the one that I stood on at least twenty times, the one that Tobias begged and cried on for at least five, the one I jumped from - to my death - last night. My chest tightens at the thought of this height, and how he manages to lie here even with his phobia.

"Morning." He says, lips curling as he remains deep in thought. The height does not faze him. Maybe it's because we're far from the edge. I can't see the ground from where I lie.

I watch him, his eyes especially. They stare right out at the skyline of Candor, overlooking the concrete buildings that reach out to Abnergation. "Morning," I say. There is a strain in my voice, the one Tobias associates with my nightmares. For the first time since I woke up today, he turns to look at me. Do I have a hint of tears in my eyes?

"Bad dream?" He says, and I can't help but recall the way he screamed when I fell. I had closed my eyes to avoid the guilt in his eyes. The grief. So I only heard him as I went over the edge. His palm spreads over my cheek, his long, slender fingers cupping the side of my face. For a moment, it renders me breathless. And for another, the flashes of his face my dream tears a hole in my heart wide open, empty with guilt.

I nod, but don't explain any further. Tobias understands the intention of my silence, and doesn't push me either. For a while, a moment of peace is present in the silence between us. It feels surreal, this feeling of peace, amongst all the hectic and mania happening now, and I am somehow afraid that we will lose it.

"So... What were you thinking about?" I say.

"Nothing much," says Tobias. I stare at him with a raised eyebrow. "I just enjoy watching you wake up. For a while, I thought: Where would I be if I pressed you too hard in Dauntless initiation? If I broke you. Would we be where we are and what we are now?"

_Sometimes I just want to see it again. Want to see you awake._ I can almost feel his dark eyes trained on me, like in Dauntless. And I can almost feel his hand grazing my jaw and neck.

"Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you'd be hanging by my side, but broken to the point of loyalty. Or maybe you'd be dead, at the bottom of the chasm. At the bottom of a building. At the bottom of anything at all. And I wouldn't have lived with myself for killing the only person that gave me the strength, the courage, to stay on in Dauntless and away from Marcus, since I live to see you awake. I would have left, you know; I would have thought I deserved it all. I would have left without argument."

I press my face into his chest, breathing in the scent I can now identify as Candor body soap. It took me awhile, but I recognised Christina's. The mentioning of her name reminds me of Will, and there is the usual guilty pang in my chest. I press further, but not too hard, to get the names out.

It kind of hits me now, and how stupid was I not to have realised any earlier. Me and Tobias; five hours ago we weren't talking. Five hours ago he didn't _bother_ looking me in the eyes. Five hours ago, I came up here alone, like I had many times before. It wasn't only in dreams. Five hours ago, he was just Four, to me. Intimidating, hideously reckless Four, the one that cut my ear with a flying blade. Now, he's Tobias?

I'm confused, with the way he's on and off. Five hours ago, he still thought I was reckless, that I thought my life carried no value. Five hours later, and Tobias is kissing my temple as I flash a ghost of a smile back at him. I shift out of his arms and sit up, feeling his slightly calloused fingers brush my wrist. Like in my dream. Before I fell.

"Tris?" calls Tobias. I look over my shoulder as I stand up, watching his brows pull into a frown. His eyes are guarded. "Tris, come back here, alright?" He sits up too, reaching for my wrist again.

"Give me a second. The view here is just... Breathtaking." I lie. I take a step away from him, closer to the edge that I fell from, and he, out of insane impulse, grabs my wrist firmly. It's so abrupt that it throws me off balance, and I almost fall. My heart jumps from my short, and I glare at him as he stands up. I curse at Tobias, and regret it as soon as my irrational words leave my lips. "What the hell is wrong with you, Tobias? Let me go!"

I try to wriggle my hand from his painful grasp, my fingers starting to go prickling and numb. Still, he doesn't let go. "You're hurting me! Let go!" I writhe, screaming at him senseless as my wrist burns. I flick my wrist in hopes of getting his hold to loosen, for him to let go, but he doesn't. He holds onto me a little tighter, and onto the window with the other. His legs seem weak, now that he's standing on a ledge eighteen floors from the ground.

"What are you doing, Tris?" says Tobias. His voice is tight. I can imagine how his insides are tightening, from muscles to throat, to have produced such a voice. Like a coil winding up to the point of breaking, when the elasticity is no more.

Still, I almost want to scream at him, but I build it up. "What am I doing?" I say. "What am I doing?" I make myself louder. "I'm just standing on the ledge I woke up on! I'm just standing, Tobias! But what in the world are you doing holding me so hard it hurts?"

My cheeks feel hot with immense anger, and I can imagine how flushed I look now. I shouldn't feel a slight bit of sympathy towards his struggle to answer for his impulses, since I can never really answer mine too, but I do. It terrifies me that through all that anger, I still love him. I can't say it, but I do. At times like this, he just pisses me off, but it's worth it at other times. I just don't feel it today.

Instead of backing any further away from him, which will most probably result in him holding me tighter - as if I'd fall to my death on that ledge, I walk towards him, pushing right past him almost too hard like a shove, and walk a few steps before I then around. "You're hurting me. Let. Go," I say, in the most direct way that it sounds sharp, like a metaphorical knife. My voice is deadpan.

I'm not the kind to, whenever I'm pissed, soothe my boyfriend to calmness because anything I say or do will ultimately end up with me exploding in anger right in his face.

Tobias stares at me blankly, with a hint of apology in his eyes. I stare back defiantly, not letting up. Yet, I've never seen him that unnerved or that fearful before. The fear simulation incident comes close, but barely winning. In my anger, I don't really care, even though it bugs me. I claw his fingers off my wrist when he's in too much shock to let go.

"Tris..." He says in a small voice. Almost whimpering. His hands tremble, and I feel the quivering from the one in my palm. A part of me urges me to wrap my hand around it, and be that soothing girlfriend I will never be. The other urges me to leave, because he's just insane today. Maybe if I give him some time, he will come to his senses. "Tris..." It's softer, and far too destroyed to belong to the Tobias I know.

I clench and unclench my fingers into fists, letting blood gush to my fingertips to drive away the prickling numbness. He looks at me like he begs for apology, but I look down at my hand. I look at the bright red markings on my wrist, which will probably turn into a bruise by the next hour. Somewhere inside me, I flare.

"What's wrong with you?" I spit, rubbing my sore wrist with my other hand and I brush past him towards the exit. He doesn't spare me a look, and I turn as I put one foot out the door. "You're crazy."

Then, I leave him behind to deal with the angry slam of the door that resonates through the hallways, a guilty pang jumping out and through my chest.

* * *

**i'm horrible at cliff-hangers. and the stupid part of this story is that when i wrote chapter 1, i didn't really know what i'd progress into. decided for a little Tris-pissed sad-Tobias angst! hope you enjoyed it (: reviews again would be more than lovely!**


End file.
